Bob decides that a vacation rental would be cheaper and more interesting anyway. He searches and finds plenty of nice apartments on various local Abuja classifieds websites.

Now, however, he is beginning to worry about paying a deposit. Didn’t he hear something about Nigeria having some sort of problem with fraud? What if he pays the deposit but, when he arrives, loaded down with suitcases, he discovers that it was all a scam?

Meet Neoklis

Neoklis lives in Cyprus and is an agent for local owners who rent their properties out to tourists. He has no problem getting reservations through Airbnb and other major booking sites although, of course, he is unhappy about the massive slice that they take.

Unfortunately, these sites take credit card payments for the full accommodation amounts in advance and send them to Neoklis’ bank account. This meant that he was utterly wiped out in March 2013 when the Cypriot government solved their financial crisis by raiding bank accounts.

No-one cared that the money was not really his, that it was on its way to property owners, it was simply taken. Now, Neoklis, and pretty much everyone in Europe, no longer trusts banks and would far, far prefer CASH … but how can you take still online reservations while operating on a 100% cash basis?

Staycoin solves all these problems by acting as a trusted third-party that holds onto booking deposits as a bond against failure to turn up and/or damage. The guest is not sending money to a stranger – completely eliminating the risk of deposit scams – but the property owner has the reassurance of knowing that the guest was serious enough to lay down money.

Bob reads Margaret’s apartment listing and sees that she accepts Staycoin. He sends $100 from his US bank account to Staycoin’s US bank account and the entire amount is credited to his Staycoin account. At this point, his entire $100 is “unlocked” – any money that is not currently allocated to a deposit bond is “unlocked” and can, upon request, be returned to his bank account.

Signing up as an owner is even easier, Margaret did not even need a bank account. A one week stay in her apartment will cost $420 and she wants a 20% deposit, so, that will be $84.

Bob creates a bond, locking $84, assigns it to Margaret’s email address and she reserves his dates. The other $14 in his Staycoin account remains unlocked. Margaret does NOT receive this any of this $84 bond, unless Bob fails to show up or if there is an unresolved damage dispute but 99.9% of the time the bond will remain untouched and stay safely sitting in Bob’s Staycoin account.

Upon arrival, Bob pays Margaret the ENTIRE accommodation cost in cash, in her local currency.

At this point, the purpose of the $84 booking deposit being held by Staycoin changes: it now becomes a damage deposit.

After his seven days, Bob will checkout and, after confirming that there is no unsettled damage, Margaret will release the $84 bond by sharing the unlock code she was emailed at the time of booking – so much easier for the guest then receiving back the damage deposit in the form of a big pile of Nigerian money.

Disaster strikes!

Bob has the time of his life in Abuja but, midway through the week, he fails to realize that Nigerian Guinness is twice the strength and becomes atrociously drunk.

The next afternoon he awakens to two stunning discoveries:

1. He has broken one of Margaret’s plates.

2. He is now married.

So, how will the broken plate affect his Staycoin deposit?

Well, it will not affect his Staycoin deposit at all because, of course, being a sane human being, he will simply buy her a replacement plate or give her the money to do so herself (in fact, his wife insists that he throw in a little extra to make up for the inconvenience).

The end result for Margaret is that she got a week of occupancy that might not otherwise have happened and she is breaking into the foreign tourist market. She got paid the full amount in cash and did not lose a single cent to middlemen such as Airbnb. She was reassured that, if any serious damage had occurred and Bob had refused to cover it, a deposit was being held by an impartial third party but, on the whole, she was happy to avoid having to mess around with deposits and having to store the damage deposit in cash.

The end result for Bob was that he got the ease of online booking without any risk of deposit scams. He got to stay in an authentically Nigerian environment rather than stay bunkered up in an expensive Western hotel. He benefited from the wider choice afforded by a system that can be used by any honest property owner, even those without bank accounts. Best of all, as soon as he checked out, his deposit bond was unlocked, ready to be used again or returned to his bank account.

The Key to Staycoin

The key to Staycoin is that in 99.9% of cases, the money stays sitting safely in the user’s own Staycoin account, in their own currency, in a bank in their own country.

It sits in the background, merely acting as a guarantee to allow a cash transaction to occur between two people, bypassing the hefty fees of the major booking sites, the credit card companies and the banks. It also bypasses the attention of government in countries where bureaucracy and corruption make it hard for normal people to do business.

The aim is to enable simple, trusted, person-to-person cash transactions – the Internet allows the owner to describe her property and makes it easy for the potential guest to get in touch. Staycoin, however, removes the need for the actual transaction to occur online.

The ease of online booking … without the sleaze of credit card companies, banks and Airbnb.